


can i dream for a few months more?

by lesbianbettycooper



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Dimension 20: Fantasy High
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant (Mostly), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Female Character of Color, Gen, Love, Missing Scene, Mother-Daughter Relationship, POV Character of Color, POV Female Character, also theyre black!, but also its about love! and support! and how sometimes you just gotta cry on someone!, its about your complex feelings towards your complex mother as a complex person!, there's just something about a person you love taking your braids out!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22303600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianbettycooper/pseuds/lesbianbettycooper
Summary: She flips onto her back to stare at the ceiling. Starethroughthe ceiling is probably more accurate. She’s not reallyseeingthe tin ceiling tiles; they’re more something to look at as she thinks about a dozen other things. The ruby holding her dad is warm where she holds it against her chest. It seems to hum in time with her heartbeat. She takes a deep breath.So far, spring break has been a nightmare. Literally. It’s been horrible experience after horrible experience and Fig’s getting pretty fucking tired of it. Even more tired of herself. It feels like everything she does is wrong, like the doubt that began to spread when her horns sprouted has finally made its way throughout her whole body. Her fear of herself has grown debilitating and the tight grip that she keeps on Gorthalax’s ruby does nothing to abate it.She wants to talk about it. It feelsbadnot to talk about it. She wants her dad to call her kiddo and tell her it’s not her fault and she wants to be allowed to just be akidwith her friends - no matter how much she denies it.or; fig feels a Lot of things and hugs her mom
Relationships: Figueroth Faeth & Gilear Faeth, Figueroth Faeth & Gorthalax the Insatiable, Figueroth Faeth & Sandralynn Faeth
Comments: 7
Kudos: 70





	can i dream for a few months more?

**Author's Note:**

> title from class of 2013 by mitski 
> 
> this is set somewhere between sandralynn having sex with garthy and the row and the ruction but i literally cant remember what happened in between so its Very Vague sdfhskj
> 
> also this is quite literally projection 101 so... be Aware of that

Leviathan creaks and shouts beneath Fig, swaying on the seemingly endless sea. A place like this doesn’t stop; as one person sleeps, another wakes. Bastion City had been similar, always moving, unyieldingly alive. 

Fig can’t sleep. There’s too much noise outside the Gold Gardens and an unnerving lack of noise inside. She should hear whispers from Fabian’s room and giggles from Kristen’s but instead there’s nothing. Loneliness and failure permeate the silence and it’s a constant reminder of just how shittily things are going. 

She flips onto her back to stare at the ceiling. Stare _through_ the ceiling is probably more accurate. She’s not really _seeing_ the tin ceiling tiles; they’re more something to look at as she thinks about a dozen other things. The ruby holding her dad is warm where she holds it against her chest. It seems to hum in time with her heartbeat. She takes a deep breath.

So far, spring break has been a nightmare. Literally. It’s been horrible experience after horrible experience and Fig’s getting pretty fucking tired of it. Even more tired of herself. It feels like everything she does is wrong, like the doubt that began to spread when her horns sprouted has finally made its way throughout her whole body. Her fear of herself has grown debilitating and the tight grip that she keeps on Gorthalax’s ruby does nothing to abate it.

She wants to talk about it. It feels _bad_ not to talk about it. She wants her dad to call her kiddo and tell her it’s not her fault and she wants to be allowed to just be a _kid_ with her friends - no matter how much she denies it. She wants her parents to listen to her vent and hold her as she cries but, as much as he tries and as close as they’ve gotten, Gilear still fidgets when she talks about Gorthalax in length; her mom isn’t much help either, self-sabotaging and self-hating and prideful in turn. She’s as much of a mess as Fig and at times it’s comforting to know that she’s not the only one messing up - that her mom _gets_ it - but most of the time it’s exhausting and upsetting and too much for a sixteen-year-old to have to deal with.

She picks her water bottle up off the floor, grimacing as it crinkles noisily, and takes a very long sip. A salt lamp turns the room an ambient orange; lavender oil sits unused on the dresser. There’s a fly trapped between the window screen and the glass, it buzzes noisily, _obnoxiously_. Fig wishes she was asleep.

It’s not all her mom’s fault, her dads messed her up too but thinking about things you already know is always easier than considering things you don’t. So she falls back on the thread that her mind frequently pulls on, unravelling quickly and easily; her mom really fucked her up.

This line of thinking is common, one where she sort of thinks that mothers must have this inherent need to instill their trauma into their daughters. That they pile it on even when their daughters have trauma of their own. She thinks it must be an accident, that their own mothers did it to them and their mothers to them and on and on and on; it’s a fault that she can’t hang too heavily on her mom’s shoulders. But she thinks it’s true nonetheless.

She thinks her grandmother must have been awful in a way that Sandralynn has never _ever_ been. The way that her mom hates her is evidence enough; deep and silent and sharp enough to cut. She’s never told Fig about it but it’s clear to her anyway - in the way that her mom ignores her uncle’s calls on their mom’s birthday; the way that she stops herself from saying certain sentences when she’s scolding Fig, gripping her hips to stay her hands from shaking; the way that the most she’s ever said about her mother to Fig is that they didn’t get along.

She can barely remember her mother’s mother and she can’t be sure if the memories she does have of her - pinched cheeks and hard candies and side-long glances at Gilear - are fully real. Fig watched a lot of TV growing up and doting grandmothers were common enough that maybe her mind just filled in the blanks. She died when Fig was young; there’s a folded up funeral program in one of the filing folders and Fig just looks at it sometimes, at the lines of her grandmother’s face that she can see in her mom’s and her own, at the pearl earrings that she’s seen in her aunt’s jewellery box, at the tiny hint of a smile on her grandmother’s face. Her mom doesn’t keep any other photos of her in the house.

She doesn’t want to be like that, Fig decides as she pulls on a pair of fluffy bed socks and sets her feet on the cold floor. Sometimes it feels like she hates her mom, sometimes she _does_ , but the idea of there being a Sandralynn Faeth shaped hole in her life makes a pit bubble in her stomach. It makes her want to cry, makes her want to wrap her arms around her mom’s neck and never let go.

She remembers, once, when her mom was away on a work trip and Gilear lived in the same clothes for the whole week because he got too overwhelmed to change, Fig had felt kind of like a balloon cut loose from the bunch. Those first few days were great; it had been like a three-day-long pyjama party and they cooked dinner together every night and it was all very picturesque. He used pink hairbands to put Fig’s hair into little braids - before she sprouted horns and grew a tail and he’d left her to deal with the revelation by herself because she sure as fuck was not going to talk to her mom about it - and they watched the morning cartoons at night.

Then suddenly, on the fourth day of Sandralynn’s trip, Fig realised that her mom wasn’t there. She had known that already, of course, but it became terribly clear when she finally noticed that her mom had taken her pillow with her. Seeing the place beside her dad’s floppy looking pillow empty had shot a wave of terror through her so alarming that she’d immediately burst into tears.

The next day, Fig had become convinced that both her and Gilear would die without Sandralynn, was sure of it when dinner was Fallinel take-away for the fourth day in a row. She had to be pried away from her mom when she finally returned. The thought of that feeling every single day for the rest of her life makes her hands shake and her stomach ache. 

Her hand flits up to touch the base of her horns, a nervous tick that Fig thought she’d gotten rid of before tour. She pulls a braid loose from the bun atop her head instead, dragging the end along her chin as she paces from the bed to the door and back again. Her socks slide on the floor once, twice, three times before she finally pulls on a pair of slippers she stole from Gilear.

The door creaks as she opens it, scrapes just barely as it closes behind her. She leans her back against it for a moment, breathes as she tucks her room key into her pocket and her hair behind her ear. 

Her mom’s room is only three doors down - Adaine’s, Fabian’s, Cathilda’s, and then Sandralynn’s - but the walk feels like it takes a year. She hears mumbling from one of the rooms she passes but her mind is so one track that she can hardly find it in herself to be curious. 

The cold air chills her bare legs, makes the hair on them stand straight. Fig turns, her mother’s door looms before her. She knocks quickly, three sharp taps, and then pulls her hand back as if the engravings might somehow curl around her wrist and swallow her whole.

Fig hears shuffling inside the room for a brief moment before the door swings open and Sandralynn peers down at her. 

“Hi,” Fig greets, nervous for no good reason.

“Hey, honey,” her mom returns, smiling tiredly. She moves aside so Fig can come in, “You okay?”

Fig nods, even though she sort of totally wants to just start sobbing. “Did I wake you?” she asks, glancing at Sandralynn’s bonnett and pyjamas while twisting the ruby in her hands.

“Nah,” her mom mutters, “Couldn’t sleep.” Sandralynn tugs on her earlobe twice, “How about you? What’s up?”

Fig suddenly feels the need to make up an excuse, thinks that ‘I just wanted to see you and wanted to let you be my mom again’ is not a good enough answer. “Hair,” she forces out after a long moment, twisting the braid she pulled from her bun around one of her fingers.

“Hair?” Sandralynn repeats, glancing down at Fig’s other hand, the one clutching Gorthalax’s ruby as if he might try to run away.

“My braids,” Fig clarifies, quickly gathering her bearings and tucking her hand into her shorts’ pockets. “They’ve been in for a while. Can you help me take them out?”

Her mom smiles and nods, “Of course.”

She grabs a comb from her bag and sits at the end of the bed, tossing a pillow - a nice one with golden embroidery that’s too big for anyone to actually use for sleeping - on the floor in front of her. She doesn’t mention that it’s really too late to be doing this, doesn’t mention that Fig could easily do this alone, she doesn’t press about the ruby; Sandralynn only sections off her hair and sets to unbraiding each one meticulously. 

Fig puts on a movie she downloaded onto her crystal a while ago, before tour even. A kids movie, a relic from her not-so-distant childhood. She and Gorgug would watch it on the tour bus once a week, huddled under blankets and cuddled close; a brief respite from the insanity that had become their lives. She smiles as she presses play.

Fig is not the best at silences, a lot of the time her brain tells her that she needs to fill her immediate vicinity with noise. Sitting still, being quiet, listening patiently all take her a little out of her element but she manages just barely. It’s her mom who breaks the silence when she’s on the last stretch of Fig’s hair. 

“I’m sorry,” Sandralynn says, a leaning pile of extensions perched on the edge of the bed beside her. Fig keeps her eyes on her hands but she hears a sniffle from behind her, even as her mom’s hands keep moving. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

“Mom,” Fig mutters, her heart aching.

“I’ve made so many mistakes, Fig.”

A breeze blows through the crack beneath the door. Cold and unforgiving. Cruel. She feels it on the few lines of her scalp still braided.

“I know,” Fig grips Gorthalax to her chest, blinks back tears. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

Her hands shake as she pulls the extension from the last braid out of Fig’s hair; a drop of water splashes on Fig’s shoulder.

Fig quickly turns to hug her. Kneeling as she wraps her arms around her mom’s shoulders. She doesn’t say anything for a long while, just lets her mom cry. It doesn’t feel too great - her knees start to ache and her own eyes start to water and she wishes so terribly that Sandralynn was the one comforting her, not the other way around - but making others feel better is kind of her thing, so she just sucks it up.

“Maybe,” Fig starts, voice a little shaky. “Maybe all you can do is try to be better. You’re not a bad person, mom, you just… lose sight of things sometimes.”

Her mom pulls back after a minute, smiling very slightly. Even as her face shines with tears, Sandralynn looks down at her with a love that Fig can hardly bear to see. 

She holds Fig’s face between her hands as if she was a precious gem, a _ruby_ , “You know that too, right, sweetie?”

Fig shrugs; she can’t bring herself to say anything.

“You are not a bad person, Fig,” Sandralynn echoes, brushing away the first few tears that escape Fig’s furious blinking. “None of this is your fault and you’ve _gotta_ know that.”

“I do,” she mutters, her grip on Gorthalax’s ruby the tightest it’s been since Bastion City. “I think I do.”

Her mom pulls her up to sit next to her, hair extensions dropped haphazardly on the floor as she’s pulled back into a tight hug. “It wasn’t you and it wasn’t your fault,” she rubs her back like she used to when Fig was little. “You’re the best person I know, you’re the best person Gilear knows, and you’re _definitely_ the best person Gorthalax knows.”

Fig can’t stop herself from crying anymore; Sandralynn hugs her closer. A Fantasy Disney Channel Original Movie plays quietly behind them.

“He won’t be angry with you, Fig,” she says in a very quiet voice, the truth of it ringing out around the room and shooting into Fig’s body, making a little pocket in her heart and begging her to internalise it. “He loves you _so much_ , we all do.”

“I love you too,” Fig manages through her tears, her face smooshed against Sandralynn’s shoulder. It feels like the most honest thing she’s ever said, like a glass of water in the morning or food after fasting. It feels like her mom’s arms around her while she cries.

**Author's Note:**

> truly i am a faeth family stan first and a human second. the way that i love them is.... unreal. also sandralynn is black, so fig is also black, and i know this in the deepest part of my soul. 
> 
> comments, kudos, and bookmarks mean the world to me! and if u wanna shout about dimension 20, my tumblr is kendallroydyke!
> 
> also i have a fig playlist (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3vOF6ucB46mH0VcNQHgl5w?si=if7xV-Z9QHiTp9fbPiu-iA) and a fantasy high pinterest board (https://www.pinterest.com.au/bella_roh/tv-fantasy-high/) so... yeah.


End file.
